Lucky Number

In this math game, the lucky number is 13! All you need is a deck of playing cards to begin practicing your addition facts in this fun activity. Use cards to create a game board, which you will scan looking for sums of 13. Begin by playing together with your first grader, and gradually let him take ownership of the game. He will love the challenge of trying to get rid of all of the cards in the deck!

What You Need:

• One deck of cards (Print a deck.)

What You Do:

1. Shuffle and deal 2 rows of 5 cards each, as shown in the picture below.
2. Scan the cards for sums of 13. (For the purposes of this game, aces = 1, jacks =11, queens = 12, and kings = 13.)
3. Remove all combinations of 13, and place these cards in a discard pile. (In the example below, the king of spades could be removed, as well as 8 + 5 and 7 + 6.)
4. Deal new cards into the empty spaces, using the remaining pack.
5. Play until no more moves can be made. If you succeed in dealing and clearing the entire deck, you have won!

Variations:

• Change the amount cards you work with at one time by adding or subtracting a row, changing the size of a row, etc.
• Remove the kings and make the required sum 12, remove the kings and queens and make the sum 11, or remove all face cards and change the required sum to 10.
• Instead of finding sums, find differences of 6.